"Fred" <Fred@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:418462d8$1@duster.adelaide.on.net...
> I have a table in sql 2000 that is storing Financial Tick data. The
database
> size now appears at about 30GB and I have decided to backup the database
and
> store the data offsite.
>
> Here is where I am confused about whether only a Database (complete)
backup
> is necessary or whether I must also include a Transaction log backup for
the
> most recent data.

The Full will only be complete up through any committed transaction at the
time of its finish.

Now, if you do a full once a day (say at 1:00 AM), you can restore to that
point.

But let's say your DB crashes at 11:00 PM. You've lost 22 hours worth of
transactions.

If you do a transaction backup say every hour, you could restore up through
the 10:00 PM log and lose less data.

>
> 1. If I use a complete Database backup only, will all my data be stored on
> this? (Even if I have never done a Transaction log backup)

See above.

>
> 2. My Database size Data.MDF is 500MB and the Log.LDF is 30GB. If I
complete
> a database Backup can I now get rid of this Log file, or is it also
storing
> data that is necessary???? I noticed on Books online that it states
> following a log file backup that it truncates the inactive portion of the
> transaction log, which would hopefully decrease this enormous log file
size.

Right.

You have a couple of options here.

If you don't care about transaction log backups (i.e. do the "restore once a
day, don't care if I lose lots of data") then set the DB to simple recovery
mode.

However, generally you DO care about transaction log backups, which means
you should do them.

In that case your log will generally stay much smaller and you can then
shrink it to a reasonable size.

Hope that helps some.


>
> Thank you for your help
>
>